Tag Archives: Family

It’s been quite a while since I’ve been on here. Being a full-time worker, a something time mum and not-so-organised, meant various things fell away – blogging; fitness; house-wifing – all the important stuff.

So a quick summary of the past year.

Chublet went on her first overseas holiday when I had a conference in NZ.

B got a full time job in a new industry (and is doing really well)

I opened multiple new exhibitions at work, organised some big changes (rebranding, new light system, new website etc) and got two new staff after several months of being two staff down.

Lots of gardening, crafting, music making (Chublet is now learning the violin), occasional trips to Sydney, Port Macquarie and South Australia

We gained a family member.

Yep, that’s right, we are now a family of 4. After an early miscarriage in the middle of last year, we got pregnant again before we knew it and almost 4 months ago Little Hippo joined us. So I’m now back to being a full time mum, at home with Hippo and Chublet and trying to remember how to be a bit more organised than usual and balance the days between avoiding boredom, giving Hippo the space to learn to sleep and dividing my days into a 2.5 hourly repeat cycle.

You never know, if I succeed in the above this blog might just get regular attention again.

I’m far from a perfect parent, and I constantly struggle with feeling like I’m messing it up. One area where I really have to give myself a strong talking to is when I do craft activities with Chublet. I’ve always been someone who like to do things as instructed, have a plan and follow the path – there’s a reason I was never great at jazz trumpet, but excellent at classical… and craft with Chublet challenges all my desires to do things ‘right’.

So with this in mind a couple of weekends ago I succumb to Chublet’s pleading to do the ‘giraffe puzzle’ given to her for christmas. To clarify – the puzzle wasn’t a puzzle at all, but a sweet little collage activity set with 4 partly illustrated boards, several punch out shapes, stickers, glue and a few select glittery bits. The kit came with a little booklet that carefully, through lovely pictures, showed how you went from partly illustrated template, to clever picture by selecting a range of punch out shapes, carefully arranging them on the image, adding stickers in pre-determined locations and finally putting a few glittery touches on the emerging image. All very lovely, and very clearly set out as to how to do it FOLLOWING THE INSTRUCTIONS.

So on a rainy day when B was away looking after his Dad, I pulled the box down, showed Chublet the instruction book, helped her do the first bit, explained again that she should look at the picture to see what shapes she needed and where to put them, and then I walked away to tackle the dishes and leave her to it. Less than 5 minutes later, and barely giving me time to get the washing up gloves on, Chublet announces she’s finished the first picture and is ready for the next one. So with a big breath I go and see what she’s done. the internal monologue was going mad ‘leave it alone, she’s done it herself and is proud of that achievement, it doesn’t matter how it looks, etc etc.’ But you know what, I just couldn’t help myself in fixing one little bit – the flowerpot, that should have been at the bottom of the carefully printed vine that spread all over the page, and was instead randomly plonked by Chublet in the middle of nowhere. As she turned to chose the next picture, I carefully re-positioned that flowerpot, the right way up and just where it should have been – those instructions must be followed!

One day I might manage to be a perfect parent by worrying a whole lot less about doing it perfectly correctly.

The problem with being a not-so-organised housewife is the times when you realise that about the only thing you are truly successful at is failing as an adult. Those points of failure where not being organised, tidy and having really good routines lead to loosing things, forgetting stuff and having a carpet that hasn’t been vacuumed in too many weeks to count.

My current failure quota is pretty high when it comes to home life. Work is flying along with regular wins, but all that comes at a cost at home and a failure to balance the demands and pressures of the two parts of my life, as well as a failure to cope with high levels of interrupted sleep (yes, Chublet has been on a sleep avoidance bender recently).

Do you think science will get a point where we can swap lives for a little while? Sometimes I think it would be nice to see what it is like to be organised, neat, in control and properly adulting. But only for long enough to get the house and general life stuff in order, then I think I’ll swap back to being me – not-so-organised, preferring to play with Chublet, read a book or do some crochet to all that organising, adulty stuff.

I’ve been reflecting a bit of late on the times I’ve said ‘we were so lucky’ and not properly understood exactly what that meant. In some ways I’m now gaining an awareness of just what it meant. You see, we’re not so lucky this time around.

When B and I decided we were ready to start a family we thought it would be nice to be pregnant within 6-12 months. Instead we fell pregnant within 6 weeks. Having many friends and some family members who have struggled with fertility issues I was able to say ‘we were really lucky and didn’t even have to think about it’. Yet I blithely rattled off that sentiment without properly understanding.

I didn’t understand the incredibly complex emotions that increase each month; the feeling of failure as the blank white space on the pregnancy test stands testament to your inability to reproduce; the tension of waiting to see if your period turns up, wondering if you should test now and get the disappointment over with early, then realising that it won’t help – every fibre of you will collapse a little on the day it arrives, regardless; the feeling of anger that is directed at no-one and nothing, but is there anyway; and the incredibly mixed emotions that come with each friend who falls pregnant or has a baby.

You see, it’s been almost a year now since we decided we wanted to add to our family. A three year age gap between chublet and no. 2 sounded about right to us, and we blithely assumed we’d get pregnant nice and quickly again, after all we were one of the those lucky couples who didn’t have fertility issues. And yet, Chublet turned 3 recently, and my womb remains empty. To add to the pain, Chublet has been doing a lot of role playing recently, and in most of it she chatters away about her brother or sister. Her brother can be anyone from her friends at daycare, to her teddies or a friend’s dog, and her sister is usually her doll or her cousins, but her inclusion of the phrase in her play sends a little arrow into my heart. How I’d love for her to properly understand the term and be able to use it in referring to her actual sibling.

It is an agony that is so hard to talk about, so strange to share, and yet so deeply a part of me each month now that some days are difficult to get through. But still, I know we are part of the lucky ones. We have Chublet who is a delight and brings us so much joy; we are only just starting down the path of being considered to have fertility issues, so our journey is still young; and we know that we can have children, so there is always that small hope. We are part of the lucky ones, but it is only now that I understand what that means as I start to uncover the other side.

I’ve been doing some pointless daydreaming of late and thinking of things that would help me get and feel more organised. These are my top 5.

#5 – A dishwasher.
We have a tiny kitchen, it has 5 cupboards in it. It feels cramped with one person in it. When someone is at the sink washing dishes, it’s impossible for anyone else to access the fridge or the stove, and as soon as you have more than 2 dishes waiting to be washed it’s cluttered and difficult to work in. If we magically had room to put in a dishwasher I’m sure it would help. After all, being able to hide all those dirty dishes throughout the day, and then just pushing a button to make them clean overnight all sounds so much more organised.

#4 – A robotic vacuum.
I love the idea of a vacuum cleaner that just goes around and cleans up without needing help. But even more, I know that for said vacuum cleaner to work you need to tidy up. I’m convinced that having a robotic vacuum would inspire me to keep the floors tidy… or maybe I’d just hide the vacuum in the cupboard and leave the tidying to another day.

#3 – A cleaner
In the same vein as the vacuum, for a cleaner to do the job you pay them to do, you need to have the place tidy. I’m sure having someone coming around regularly would give me the kick up the rear I need to do a mad dash of tidying regularly. Then I could come home and gaze in wonder at the dust free surfaces, the clean and organised kitchen and the sparkling bathroom. Bliss… until the next time when I stress out and run around like mad tidying up.

#2 – A bigger house with decent storage
I’m yet to find a rental place in Sydney that has a good amount of built in storage, and as we buy IKEA furniture as needed depending on the place we are moving into, our furniture is all mismatched and make-do and generally doesn’t inspire a whole lot of house love. I just know that if I had a nice house, with proper storage, matching furniture and enough space for us to live as we’d like it’d all be so much easier. *Please don’t ruin this daydream with reality*

#1 – A Cleaning fairy
They exist right?! A fabulous invisible thing that comes in during the night, tidies away all the toys, folds the washing, does the dishes, cleans the floors and benches, scrubs the bathroom and vacuums the carpet. And maybe while it’s not busy it could do the ironing, wash the windows and sort out the wardrobes. Seriously, my life would be so much more organised and less stressful if I didn’t have to worry about any of that stuff.

Chublet has a doll that is based on the children’s song ‘There was an old lady who swallowed a fly’. The doll comes with all the animals that the old lady swallows (little shaped beanbag things) and you stuff them in her mouth, then shove your fingers down her throat to pull them out again. Great way to teach kids about eating disorders, but that aside, the doll is a favourite here, mostly because Chublet loves it and will happily play with it for at least 5 minutes at a time.

So the other night, Chublet pulled Old Lady out and sat down with B to play. They got all the animals out of the doll and B starts the song. ‘There was an old lady who swallowed a ?’
Chublet: Fly! (grabs fly and stuffs it in the old lady’s mouth, shoving it down her throat and into her tummy)
B: Do you know why she swallowed a fly?
Chublet: (looking her daddy straight in the eyes) She had to die.

This post has been churning around my brain for a while now. I haven’t had the words and the emotional strength to write it. I still don’t know if I’ll do justice to an amazing woman.

Saying goodbye to you was so wrong. You were meant to be with us for years yet. You were meant to meet my daughter, in person, not just through emails, and tell her stories of the mischief I got up to as a kid – mischief you so often instigated and encouraged. You were meant to keep sending me birthday cards, always on time, always with a silly something that made me laugh. You were meant to be there for us to visit when we could make the trek across the country. You were meant to continue inspiring, challenging and pushing me forward in life and my career.

More than anything you were an inspiration to me. You challenged me to really think about the decisions I made in life, in my career, in connecting to the world. Each time we spoke (far too rarely as I know now), you questioned me in a way that made me think hard, explain myself and look deep into my soul to see why I had chosen the path I had. Once you had done that, and heard my answers, you cheered me on, telling me you had my back, telling me I could achieve more than I believed, showing me how to be the best person I could be. You gave me an alternate view of life, you who worked so hard at each and every job you held, you who gave to your community in so many small ways, you who continued to find joy in life, delight in little sillinesses, and explore the wide, wide world.

That you never had children of your own was a selfish pleasure for me. You were able to give us so much of your time, your love and yourself. You were always a part of our lives, from regular visits as small children, to increasingly infrequent phone calls, emails and visits. Yet each time I made contact you gave me all your attention, taking time off work to spend a day with me, emailing me little thoughts and encouragement when you knew I needed it, and always showing me how special I was in your life.

I now have some of your most loved clothes sitting in my wardrobe, clothes made for you; yet fitting me perfectly. Clothes that you wore to so many special occasions; clothes worn in treasured photographs. These clothes still smell of you, even two months after being added to my wardrobe. There are nights when your scent is stronger, nights when I go to sleep and dream of you. I hope that when I wear these, I stand a little taller, walk a little stronger and go a little further, just as you always believed i could.

You are missed so much. The world is a little less without you in it. Your spirit will continue to encourage me to explore, challenge and contribute.

The one area of managing a household that I feel I generally have reasonably organised (in comparison with all other areas) is that of meal planning and food shopping. I quite enjoy cooking, and having a decent supply of fresh and pantry ingredients with which to cook. However I really struggle with the amount of food we waste, and so I do my best to meal plan and only purchase food that I am confident will be eaten. This doesn’t always work with a toddler and a husband who works stupid hours, but I do my best.

So it was that I did my sunday night plan for the week, working out what meals were being prepared, what I already had, what I needed and what i’d rescue from the freezer. It was a pretty simple list as the weather was predicted to be hot and stormy, so no big stews or complicated meals. I did the shopping and started on the meal plan. Meal One – BBQ chicken and asian style salad – easy and B and I like having leftovers for work lunch. Meal Two – left over BBQ chook and pasta, with whatever veggies need using up in the fridge.

This is where I realised I hadn’t actually been as organised and clever as I thought I was. Meal 2… Meal 2 after a 6 day trip to stay with Granny, Meal 2 after encouraging B to clean out the fridge while we were away and eat / toss items still in there. Meal 2 when there are no veggies that need using up as the fridge has been cleaned out while Chublet and I were away. Thankfully there was a can of chickpeas in the pantry and some frozen peas and corn still in the freezer. Got to love an ‘it’ll do’ meal on the second day of the week.